The OECD launched a new broadband data portal today, which is a valuable source of information on broadband statistics among OECD member countries. Coinciding with the launch of the portal, the organization released its June 2007 data on broadband subscribers in OECD countries.

While the OECD traditionally gets attention for highlighting broadband penetration, they also track broadband prices, the number of infected bots per country, the average size of broadband caps, and the average fee customers pay in each country.

According to the OECD, among those countries who employ caps, the average bit cap size is 21 gigabytes of traffic per month. 29% of capped users who exceed their caps are throttled to an average of 82kbps, while 74% of users who exceed their caps pay, on average, 0.03 per additional MB. The group notes that bitcaps are most popular among ISPs in Australia, Belgium, Canada and New Zealand.

When it comes to broadband speeds, the OECD notes that the average connection offered in OECD countries is 13.7Mbps. The fastest average advertised download speeds are in Japan (93Mbps), France (44Mbps), Korea (43Mbps) and Sweden (21Mbps). Japan is tops when it comes to fastest residential broadband, offering connections of 1Gbps (although 1Gbps is available in non-OECD Hong Kong as well).

The average price of a broadband connection among OECD countries is USD 49, with FttH on average being the priciest (USD 51), and fixed wireless being the least expensive (USD 33). The average price of connectivity per Mbps is USD 18, with Japan (0.13), France (0.33), Sweden(0.35), Korea (0.38) and Finland (0.42) having the lowest cost broadband per Mbps. FttH connections are almost five times less expensive per Mbps than DSL, cable or wireless.

The United States continues to be the largest broadband market among OECD countries with 66.2 million connections, comprising 33% of all OECD tracked users. The U.S. also continues to place fifteenth among all OECD countries when it comes to penetration. Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea, Norway and Iceland lead the OECD in broadband penetration (connections per 100 residents).